General American (abbreviated as GA or GenAm) is an umbrellavariety of American English—a continuum of accents[1]—commonly attributed to a majority of Americans and popularly perceived, among Americans, as lacking any notably regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics.[2][3][4] Due to the prevalence of a General American sound system throughout the United States, General American is sometimes, though controversially,[5] known as Standard American English.[6][7][8]

Standard Canadian English closely aligns to General American speech,[8] especially rather than England's Received Pronunciation in every situation where General American and Received Pronunciation differ.[9] The precise definition and usefulness of "General American" continues to be debated,[10][11][12] and the scholars who use it today admittedly do so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness.[10][13]

History, definition, and dialectology

The term "General American" was first disseminated by American English scholar George Philip Krapp, who, in 1925, described it as "Western" but "not local in character."[14] In 1930, American linguistJohn Samuel Kenyon, who largely popularized the term, considered it equivalent to the speech of "the North," or "Northern American,"[14] but, in 1934, "Western and Midwestern."[15]

The term "General American" arose as a name for a presumed most common or "default" form of American English, especially to be distinguished from marked regional speech of New England or the South. "General American" has often been considered to be the relatively unmarked speech of "the Midwest", a vague designation for anywhere in the vast midsection of the country from Ohio west to Nebraska, and from the Canadian border as far south as Missouri or Kansas. No historical justification for this term exists, and neither do present circumstances support its use... [I]t implies that there is some exemplary state of American English from which other varieties deviate. On the contrary, [it] can best be characterized as what is left over after speakers suppress the regional and social features that have risen to salience and become noticeable.[12]

Due to the prestige and prescription potentially associated with a "General" variety of American speech, Kretzchmar prefers the term Standard American English, claiming it describes a level of pronunciation "employed by educated speakers in formal settings," while still being variable within the U.S. from place to place, and even from speaker to speaker.[7] However, this term is also problematic, since "Standard English may be taken to reflect conformance to a set of rules, but its meaning commonly gets bound up with social ideas about how one's character and education are displayed in one's speech."[7] The term Standard North American English, in an effort to incorporate Canadian speakers under the continuum, has also been very recently suggested by sociolinguistCharles Boberg.[8]

The fact that a rural, broadly Midwestern dialect became the basis of what is General American English is often attributed to the mass migration of Midwestern farmers to California and the Pacific Northwest from where it spread,[citation needed] since California speech itself became prevalent in nationally syndicated films and media via the Hollywoodfilm industry.

However, the English of the Midwest's Great Lakes region (as well as the region to its immediate west), since at least the middle of the 20th century, has begun deviating noticeably away from General American sounds, especially since that era's regionally unique Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCVS). The regionality of one's accent often gets more distinct the farther north one goes within the Midwest, and the Midwest is even home now to at least two major dialects that definitively use pronunciations divergent from "General American": the Inland North dialect (often associated with the Great Lakes urban centers, including Chicago) and the North Central dialect (often associated with Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas). The notion that Midwesterners generally speak a "more correct and more pleasant" or otherwise "accentless variety" of American English is a matter of perception and stereotype rather than truth.[26]

Particularly important in setting standards was John Kenyon, the pronunciation editor of the second edition of Webster's New International Dictionary, who is claimed to have based his dictionary's pronunciation standard on his native Midwestern (specifically, Ohio) pronunciation.[27]

General American in the media

A General American pronunciation is most directly descended from a generalized pronunciation of the early 1900s from the inland Northeastern and Midwestern states, which likely gained ground nationally by being spoken particularly by many newscasters and radio and television announcers; this has led the accent to being sometimes referred to as an American newscaster accent, "Network English" or "Network Standard."[1][3] General American is sometimes promoted as preferable to other regional accents and prestigious.[28][29] In the United States, classes promising "accent reduction", "accent modification," or "accent neutralization" generally attempt to teach speech patterns similar to this accent. A common experience among many American celebrities is having worked hard to lose their native accents in favor a more mainstream General American sound, including television journalistLinda Ellerbee (originally, a speaker of Texan English), who stated that "in television you are not supposed to sound like you're from anywhere,"[30] as well as political comedian Stephen Colbert, who completely reduced his South Carolina accent as a child because of the common portrayal of Southerners as stupid on American television.[28][29]

Phonology

Consonants

Wine–whine merger (/hw/ → [w]): The breathy "wh" sound is largely merged to a voiced "w" sound [w] (listen), so that, for instance, whale and wail sound exactly alike in most General American accents. The phoneme [ʍ] (listen) is retained only in American English varieties that have not undergone the merger, with /ʍ/ often analyzed as a consonant cluster of /hw/.

Rhoticity (or "r"-fulness): General American accents are firmly rhotic, pronouncing the "r" sound in all environments, including after vowels, such as in pearl, car, and court.[31][32] Americans realize the phoneme [ɹ] (listen) (often transcribed as /r/) as postalveolar, like in most English varieties, though with some possible retroflexion (perhaps, even as [ɻ] (listen)).[33] Non-rhotic American accents, such as Eastern New England, New York, or African American vernacular accents, are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived to sound especially ethnic, regional, or "old-fashioned" (i.e. local and non-mainstream).[34][35][36]

Yod-dropping: After consonants formed with the tongue touching the ridge on the roof of the mouth (alveolar consonants), the historical sound /j/ is most commonly "dropped" or "deleted," so that, for example, new/njuː/ becomes [nu̟ː], duke/djuːk/ becomes [du̟ːk], and tube/tjuːb/ becomes [tʰu̟ːb].[37]

"L"-velarization: England's typical English distinction between a "clear L" (i.e. [l] (listen)) and a "dark L" (i.e. [ɫ] (listen) or even [ʟ] (listen)) is much less obvious in General American; it may even be altogether absent.[38] Instead, General American speakers pronounce even the "clear" variant as more or less "dark", meaning that all "L" sounds have some degree of velarization.[39] Additionally, some speakers may vocalize/l/ to [ɤ̯] when it appears before /f v/ (and sometimes also /s z/).[40]

Diphthongs of typical Midwestern English, from Mannell, Cox & Harrington (2009b).
• When monophthongized, /eɪ/ and /oʊ/ tend to be closer to cardinal [e] and [o], respectively.
• For many speakers, the first element of /aʊ/ is more front than what appears on this chart.

1) Nearly all American English speakers pronounce /æŋ/ somewhere between [æŋ] and [eɪŋ], though Western speakers specifically favor [eɪŋ].
2) The NYC, Philadelphia, and Baltimore dialects' rule of tensing /æ/ in certain closed-syllable environments also applies to words inflectionally derived from those closed-syllable /æ/ environments that now have an open-syllable /æ/. For example, in addition to pass being tense (according to the general rule), so are its open-syllable derivatives passing and passer-by, but not passive.

Father–bother merger (/ɒ/ → [ɑ]): Nearly all American accents merge the vowel sounds of words like spa and ah with the vowel sounds of words like spot and odd; therefore, con and Kahn are homophones in General American.

Cot–caught merger in transition: There is no single "General American" way to pronounce the vowels in words like cot/ɑ/ (the "broad a" vowel) versus caught/ɔ/ (the "aw" vowel), largely due to a merger occurring between the two sounds in some parts of North America, but not others. American speakers with a completed merger pronounce the two historically separate vowels with the exact same sound (especially in the West, northern New England, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and the Upper Midwest) , but other speakers have no trace of a merger at all (especially in the South, the Great Lakes region, southern New England, and the Mid-Atlantic and New York metropolitan areas) and so pronounce each vowel with distinct sounds (listen).[49] Among speakers who distinguish between the two, the vowel of cot (usually transcribed in American English as [ɑ] (listen)), may be more of a central [ä] (listen) or advanced back vowel [ɑ̟], while /ɔ/ is phonetically higher in the mouth and/or more rounded, closer to [ɒ] (listen), but with only slight rounding.[50] Among speakers who do not distinguish between the two and are thus said to have undergone the cot–caught merger, /ɑ/ usually remains a back vowel, [ɑ], sometimes showing lip rounding as [ɒ] (also transcribed [ɑʷ] in non-standard IPA). Therefore, General American speakers vary greatly with this speech feature, with possibilities ranging from a full merger to a full absence of a merger. In the middle of this range, a transitional stage of the merger is also common in random scatterings throughout the U.S., though especially among younger speakers and most consistently in the "Midland" region lying between the historical North and South. According to a 2003 dialect survey carried out across the United States, about 61% of participants perceive themselves as keeping the two vowels distinct and 39% do not.[51]

Mary–marry–merry merger in transition: According to a 2003 dialect survey of the United States, nearly 57% of participants from around the country merged the sounds /ær/ (as in the first syllable of parish), /ɛr/ (as in the first syllable of perish), and /ɛər/ (as in pear or pair);[52] the merged sound ranges between [ɛɚ] and [ɛ(ː)ɹ]. The merger is in transition, already complete everywhere except along some areas of the Atlantic Coast.[53]

Hurry–furry merger: The pre-"r" vowels in words like hurry/ʌ/ and furry/ə/ are merged in most General American accents to [ə~ɚ]. Only 10% of English speakers across the U.S. maintain the historic hurry vowel before /r/, according to a 2003 dialect survey.[54]

Mirror–nearer merger in transition: The pre-"r" vowels in words like mirror/ɪ/ and nearer/iː/ are merged in some General American accents, usually to [i(ː)]. The quality of the historic mirror vowel is even more drastically variable in the word miracle.[55]

Unstressed pure vowels:

Weak-vowel merger: [ə] (listen) and [ɪ̈] (also transcribed as [ɨ̞] and [ᵻ] (the latter is a non-IPA symbol) (listen)) are indeterminate vowel sounds that occur only in unstressed syllables of certain types. [ə] is heard, for example, as the "a" at the beginning of about and at the end of China, as the "o" in omit, and as the "u" in syrup. [ɪ̈] is heard as the "a" in private or cottage, the "e" in evading or sorted, the "i" in sordid, the "u" in minute, or the "y" in mythologist. However, [ə] and [ɪ̈] can frequently overlap and easily merge in American accents, especially towards the schwa[ə].

In environments in which the tense—lax contrast between the close vowels is neutralized, the phonetic realization of these vowels varies in height between close and close-mid:

/iː~ɪ/ (as in HAPPY; usually transcribed /i/ even though it is not a phoneme) ranges from close front [i] to close-mid retracted front [e̠];[56]

/uː~ʊ/ (as in INFLUENCE; usually transcribed /u/ even though it is not a phoneme) ranges from close advanced back [u̟] to close-mid retracted central [ɵ̠].[56]

Fronting of "short u" (/ʌ/ → [ʌ̈~ɐ]): The vowel /ʌ/ (of strut, luck, rough, what, etc.), is generally near-open and fronted, approaching [ʌ̈~ɐ] (listen); however, it always remains a back vowel before /l/, and often even merges with /əl/, so that /ʌl/, as in null or skull, becomes [ʌɫ] or [ɫ̩].

Fronting of "long oo" (/uː/ → [u̟]): The vowel /u/ (as in lose, loose, or loot) has a unique quality in the United States (listen); it tends to be less rounded [u̜] and more fronted[u̟], and perhaps even diphthongized with a somewhat fronter and lower onset; this can be transcribed in a variety of ways.

Raising of the start of the "long i" sound before voiceless consonants: The /aɪ/ vowel, as in pine or pie—pronounced [äɪ] (listen) in North America—has a starting sound (an "on-glide") in which the tongue is raised towards [ɐɪ] or [ʌɪ] whenever it appears before a voiceless consonant (such as /k/, /s/, /t/, or /θ/, for instance, in pike or python). This phenomenon is growing in American English, first predominant historically in the Northern, New England, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the country.[59] In a General American accent, this alone causes a distinction, for example, between the words rider and writer (listen). Although now present with most U.S. speakers, this phenomenon is considered one of the two variants of so-called "Canadian raising." This raising can also apply across word boundaries, though the position of a word or phrase's stress may deny the raising from taking place. For instance, a high school in the sense of "secondary school" is generally pronounced [ˈhɐɪsku̟ɫ]; however, a high school in the literal sense of "a tall school" is pronounced [ˌhäɪˈsku̟ɫ].

When followed by /r/, the phoneme /ɒ/ is pronounced by General American speakers as [ɔ~o], for example, in the words orange, forest, and torrent. The only exceptions to this are the four words tomorrow, sorry, sorrow, borrow and, for some speakers, morrow, which use the sound [ɑ].

Horse–hoarse merger (/ɔːr/ + /ɔər/ → [o̞ɹ]): As in most modern varieties of English around the world, words like war and wore are pronounced the same in General American English. Words with these r-colored vowels, such as north and horse, are usually transcribed /nɔɹθ/ and /hɔɹs/, but may be closer in General American English to [no̞ɹθ] and [ho̞ɹs].[60] Thus, in these cases, the [ɔ] before /ɹ/ can be analyzed as an allophone of /o/.

"Short o" before "r" (before a vowel): In typical North American accents (U.S. and Canada alike), the phoneme /ɒr/ (a short "o" sound followed by "r" and then another vowel, as in orange, forest, moral, and warrant) is realized as [oɹ~ɔɹ], thus further merging with the already-merged /ɔr/–/ɔər/ (horse–hoarse) sets. In the U.S. in particular, however, four words alone are exceptions (tomorrow, sorry, sorrow, borrow and, for some speakers, morrow), which more commonly use the sound [ɑɹ], uniquely merging with the /ɑːr/ set (thus, sorry and sari become homophones, both rhyming with starry).[50]

General American /ɒr/ and /ɔr/ followed by a vowel, compared with other dialects

General American stressed /ɒr/ followed by a vowel
in comparison with other English dialects:

In General American English, both /ɜːr/ (or [ɝ]) and /ər/ (or [ɚ]) are actually pronounced, without much or any distinction, as [ɚ] (listen); for example, the word worker/ˈwɜrkər/ is often realized with two rhyming syllables as [ˈwɚkɚ] (listen).

↑Boberg, Charles (Spring 2001). "Phonological Status of Western New England." American Speech, Volume 76, Number 1. pp. 3-29 (Article). Duke University Press. p. 11: "The vowel /æ/ is generally tensed and raised [...] only before nasals, a raising environment for most speakers of North American English."

Thomas, Erik R. (2001), An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English, Publication of the American Dialect Society, 85, Duke University Press for the American Dialect Society, ISSN0002-8207